


Happy birthday, wonderful idiot

by Rae_Saxon



Category: Doctor Who
Genre: Birthday Fluff, F/M, Happy 50th Mastersary, M/M, because they deserve it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 02:46:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,628
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28503219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rae_Saxon/pseuds/Rae_Saxon
Summary: A collage of Thoschei birthday moments. I tried to include every Master I know. I may have forgotten some. Who the hell knows anymore.
Relationships: Eighth Doctor/The Master (Macqueen), Eighth Doctor/The Master (Roberts), Eighth Doctor/The Master | Yana, Fifth Doctor/The Master (Ainley), Fourth Doctor/The Master (Beevers), Tenth Doctor/The Master (Simm), The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Third Doctor/The Master (Delgado), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan), Twelfth Doctor/Missy
Comments: 5
Kudos: 45





	Happy birthday, wonderful idiot

**Author's Note:**

> I know Masterful is out and no one is probably having the time or endurance to read this, but I had to post something. It's the 50th anniverary, for God's sake! I don't know how many more of these "Doctor/Master over the years collages" I can get away with .... ( I think this might be my fourth?) but I somehow had to write about every Master? Surely? And I already did the multi Master birthday party with the Doctor as the accidental stripper, so...... Really not much choice here! :D
> 
> I also didn't have it in myself to proofread this. So, y'know... if you read through this monster fic. You have my deepest respect.

The Master was leaning against his TARDIS console, arms crossed.

This was... highly unusual, of course.

A bit silly, if he was being honest.

Not going to end well, most probably.

It wasn't that he missed the Doctor – Of course he didn't.

It wasn't that he could've used his absence to win this ridiculous universe with the blink of an eye. Well, he could. He would. It would be an excellent birthday present for him. Doing that.  
  
He hadn't considered just gifting the universe to himself, though. Instead, he was parking on a patch of grass not very far from the UNIT headquarters the Doctor was spending his exile in.

Deciding he was going to gift himself being near him again, even if it meant the end to each and every one of his plans.

That seemed fair. And if the Doctor's sense of time wasn't completely thrown off by the Time Lords and their nasty mind-interference... Hell, maybe he'd even remember his birthday and...

No. Wishful thinking. The Doctor might be sentimental full, but not to him, never him. He was nothing to be sentimental about, he was the dirt under his shoe soles. Being here, it was wrong, it was going to upset him more than it made him happy but he couldn't stop himself. Couldn't keep himself from wanting to look into that new face and see the old sparkle in those eyes, gleaming at him.

Making him feel truly alive.

So here he was now. A ridiculous plan in his luggage, the Autons at his beg and call, ready to mess up the Doctor's world.

  
Well, so, this hadn't worked out. The Master was groaning as he returned to his TARDIS. He couldn't leave, of course, but he could at least find comfort in the familiarity, he at least wasn't the Doctor, hadn't forgotten how to work the rest of the functions of his ship. Hadn't forgotten how to fix it.

Of course, one's dematerialisation circuit was rather important for these matters.

He allowed himself a single second of breathing, shoulders leaning over the console as he's shaking, trembling.

The Doctor had been as witty an opponent as ever. It was easy, in the middle of their games, their usual challenges, to forget the seriousness and remember the times in the Academy, with them laughing and mocking and fucking afterwards. Messing up each other's projects, sabotaging the other's plans, helping rebuild what they'd destroyed...

But this wasn't like this anymore.

Was it?

Only now, when the Master looked up, he noticed the tiny, little present resting on his console.

With a raised eyebrow, he took it, shook it next to his ear, listening intently. No bomb. He wouldn't think the Doctor stooped that low – It must've been the Doctor, here when he had stolen his circuit – but he also wouldn't put it past him anymore.

He opened the wrapped gift with skilled fingers, cautiously, carefully, as to not to destroy the wrapping – it was wrapped for him, after all – and stared at the little box in his hands.

“But that's...”

He grinned.

It was a lovely, silver tie. How thoughtful. He was going to wear that for his next plan. He already had an idea in mind...

The Master kept the note. Nothing but a tiny 'K' scribbled on a sheet of paper, next to the Gallifreyan symbols that roughly translated to “Have a glorious relative anniversary of your day of birth” - It was all that he needed.

  
  
  
Pain.

That was all that was left of the Master, now. Once glorious, once a true Lord of Time and all that was to come to be his.

Now he was a burnt, charred body, only held together by pain and hatred, burning brighter than the fire that had forged him.

The Doctor was the only thing on his mind, the perfect target to concentrate what was left of his mind, his soul on. He was what was keeping him from falling apart, he was what he directed all the burning, aching rage on.

And so, when the Doctor defeated him yet again, then left him behind in the shambles of his plan, as broken and pained as he was, the Master was surprised to find that there was anything left in him to _break_.

Let alone his hearts.

  
He was trembling in his TARDIS, nothing but a trembling lump of coal, nothing but used up, then kicked to the side, left behind without an afterthought. He wanted to run but didn't know where to. Wanted to escape the terrible ache of this body, but didn't know how.

That's when he heard the steps behind him.

“Leave. Now.”

He didn't have to turn around to know it was him.

“Hardly.”

“I don't want you here.”

“Tough.”

Arms locked around him from behind. For a second, he considered lashing out, getting into another physical fight with this Doctor, the most ruthless of them all, so far.

Instead of a blow, out came a strangled sob. The Doctor, to his horror and delight, only held him a bit tighter, still careful not to harm his roughened skin, simply spending him... comfort? How disgusting. How pitiful. How much he needed it.

Before he could stop himself, the Master turned around, pressing against the Doctor's chest and he held him through it, still, a hand cupping the back of his head gently, the other on his back, murmured words of comfort he couldn't understand and didn't need to. He felt the double heartbeat beneath him. It'd be easy to just escape this body and flee into the Doctor's, escape the pain and the suffering.

But somehow, now tugged safely into this embrace, this body feeling sensation other than hurt for the first time since he had entered this stage, he couldn't bring himself to. He just couldn't.

And so he let the Doctor hold him until he had fallen into an almost restful sleep. Listened to the half-hearted reassurances without really hearing them. Just enjoyed the soothing tone of them, the murmured words in his voice sending pleasant shivers down the Master's spine. This body had felt so numb, so full of pain, there'd never been somewhere else but now there was, new memories to keep it going, just for a little while longer.

When he woke up that next morning, the Doctor was gone, but in his place rested a little card.

“In hopes the next day of your birth may bring a rebirth and gentler days to come,” it said in Gallifreyan and the Master smiled weakly.

Hope. He'd gifted him hope, the old, sentimental fool.

And he'd take it.

  
  
  
Well.

Burnt on his birthday.

He had just stood there. And watched him burn.

Something was running down the Master's face. He was sure that it had to be – surely, absolutely, sweat. Tears weren't this salty. Surely.

He let himself fall against his TARDIS console, breaths still coming in little pants. His hair was messy, his clothes stank of petrol and something burnt and his ship was humming in subtle dismay.

So that was what was left of them. The burnt ashes of what they had once been.

He had just stood there. And watched him burn.

“I could be dead now,” he muttered, eyes squeezing shut in pain. “Is that what you want? For my birthday to be my death day now? For me to be nothing but a pile of ashes to your feet?”

“So dramatic,” the familiar, soft voice announced behind him, making the Master shriek and whirl around.

There was the Doctor, in his usually smug way, arms behind his back, chest proudly puffed (despite the celery – really what a joke of an accessory) and a crooked smile on these beautiful, kissable lips.

Oh and a huge bow wrapped around himself.

The Master swallowed.

“Dramatic? Like you haven't just decided to let me burn to death?”

“And yet you're alive,” the Doctor grinned. “Like I knew you would be. Like you always are.”

“Oh no, you cannot simply lay down responsibility and say you counted on my natural skill to survive. This is not how it works, Doctor. What you have done is simply unforgive...-”

He kissed him.

Stumbled forwards with urgency, both hands gripping his head, and then he kissed him, hard, short, dizzying.

“Don't say that,” the Doctor pleaded. “Don't you say that word. I'm here to repent.”

The Master sneered.

“Repent? And here I thought you wanted to celebrate my birthday with me. Make me a... gift, maybe?”

His eyes wandered up and down the bow-wrapped body hungrily and the Doctor caught onto it with a sly smile.

“Both can be true.”

“Well, then... I better get unwrapping.”

Something about the way the Doctor's face lit up made his hearts ache. He considered himself forgiven. Foolish idiot. The Master had always and never forgiven him for everything. He'd always carry the pain of it with him, while his love for the Doctor never faded, never faltered.

And oh, how often he had wished for it to.

  
“I am rather fond of the thought that you've been born on this day,” the Doctor whispered into his ear in Gallifreyan, later, as they lay in the Master's silky sheets together, sticky bodies wrapped up in each other, too entangled to tell who started and ended where.

The Master smiled, fingers running through the long, blond hair by themselves.

“I'm rather fond of you,” he stated, simply, and it was the closest he'd ever come to telling the Doctor the truth.

  
  
  
A prison cell on Skaro wasn't exactly how the Master had imagined this birthday going.

On trial.

By the Daleks, of all species.

How humiliating. He hadn't even known they were capable of pretending to hold a trial for him.

Naturally - and his people, all the people of the universe, probably, knew this – it was nothing but an extermination party for them. His birthday was to become his death day after all.

How apt, how utterly apt.

He had uttered his last wish, of course, surprised to find it granted, even. He supposed his people had their hands in that, because never, in a million years, would a Dalek have accepted the Doctor anywhere near them for this.

Of course, getting his request delivered wasn't the difficult part. The difficult part was the Doctor _following_ it.

He didn't have to wait for long, however.

  
“I was already here, you know?”

There he stood, with his stupid question mark umbrella standing before his legs, the picture of _calm_. He wished he could touch him, but the cell he was in would burn him alive the second he'd touched the electrical charged bars.

“I should've known,” the Master gave a weak smile. “You wouldn't miss my execution. I suppose you have first row seats.”

“No that's not... what I was doing,” the Doctor replied, rather gentle, he found. “Rather, I was trying to find a way to get you out but...”

“Daleks are following your every move?” the Master finished for him, tone almost bored, as he saw the two Daleks behind the Doctor, rolling closer threateningly at his words.

The Doctor gave him an apologetic smile.

 _You barely tried_ , he wanted to shout. _You barely fought for me_.

But it was alright, of course. He already had a _plan_.

  
“You know, I completely failed to wish you a happy birthday, back then,” he smiled at him now, all locks and angel face.

The Master found that while burning through a human body – of an American no less – there really wasn't much romance to this, but he could never quite say no to the Doctor in his arms, fingertips lightly tracing his new skin, hair tickling his neck.

“It would've been a bit morbid, wouldn't it? On the day of my execution?”

“I suppose so,” he grinned. “But somehow I must've known you'd come back to me.”

Here he was again – Not taking responsibility for failing him, again and again. One day, the Master thought, one day I'm going to really die, just to spite you.

But right now, with those wonderful tasting lips pressing against his, he couldn't quite argue with being _alive_.

“What a joyous day it was, though,” the Doctor murmured in Gallifreyan, his words vibrating against his lips. “To have you come back alive on a day already blessed by your birth.”

This Doctor was so romantic, it was almost painful. He'd see if he could marrow it out, just a little, watch the hope in these gleaming, childlike eyes fade.

Not today, though. Today, he was rather busy letting him celebrate his joyous day of blessed birth.

  
  
  
“Well, you see Annie, if you'd just do as you're told, we wouldn't be having this problem, now, would we?” the Master said, pleasantly, his weapon raised but the horror in Annie's face didn't seem to be focused on him and now, he couldn't have that, could he?

He turned around, facing the spot above his shoulder she was staring at and there was...

“Ah. You.”

The Doctor grinned.

“Hello you.”

“Funny. I'm gonna assume you're here to bring me a gift. Haven't forgotten, have you?”

He sounded a bit needier than he had intended to but he couldn't help it. It's been a long few years of planning without having the Doctor around and he was rather tired of it.

The Doctor grinned and threw him a little package. The Master ripped it open without much care, giving the Doctor a moment to carefully guide Annie out of the room and into safety, while pretending he didn't see.

Who cared, really, about that little plan she'd messed up. Or the fact that she was there, even. Who cared at all, when the Doctor stood in front of him and had gifted him...

“Hair conditioner. Funny. Funny, because I am bald.”

“Glad you got the joke.”

“I would've almost missed it.”

They looked at each other for a long moment.

“You, I missed,” the Master finally closed, a winning smile on his lips and the Doctor smiled just as winning back – Bloody charming body, this one was, with all the cute locks and the face like the statue of an angel and the voice straight from heaven.

“You did, did you?” the Doctor replied, smirking and bobbing on balls of his feet like a little kid.

“Rather a lot.”

They stood there for another long moment, still staring at each other.

“You could stay for tea,” the Master offered. That was only polite after such a.... thoughtful gift, after all.

The Doctor beamed at him.

“I'm sure that can be arranged!”

  
The tea _somehow_ turned into something more than just a birthday tea and now the Doctor was in his bed, refusing to leave, naked if it wasn't for the duvet wrapped around him and the Master, regretfully having to leave him, was fixing his tie.

“I'm going to assume you'll be gone when I return.”

“You look like you have a plan,” the Doctor smiles. “I thought I'd sleep in, give you a head start, if you will, then ruin it a little.”

A heavy sigh left the Master's lips.

“Well, aren't you going to tell me some sappy funfact about my birthday in Gallifreyan or something before I leave to get it ruined?”

At that, the Doctor slipped out of the bed after all, blanket slipping as he stood behind him, completely naked, arms wrapping around his chest, as soft, warm lips kissed the back of his neck.

The words muttered against it next were as Gallifreyan as they were soft.

“My world would've been a darker one had this celebratory day of your birth never occurred.”

The Master smirked.

  
  
  
War was... scary? Well, this one was. The biggest, most ruthless of them all. He was prepared of course, to the last, to simply pack his bags and flee the second things got critical. He had his chameleon arch ready. Had the coordinates pre-typed. Was one emergency protocol away from freedom.

Until then, he'd simply have some fun, or so he had thought. But between all his plans, all his vicious, beautiful plans, the Doctor had showed up again and again, spoiling it for him.

Oh, the Doctor. If only he could get rid of him, fully rid of him. Instead, he had somehow found himself merging their minds together, re-creating the universe in their image, had somehow found himself wrapped in that beautiful voice, uttering words he could almost interpret as loving, as affectionate, as impressed.

“Oh Master,” he muttered. “We're the perfect balance this universe needs. You and me, Master – And where are you now? Off with your silly human friends, not caring about anyone's balance anymore, now that you've achieved what you wanted, do you?”

“Well, actually...” The Doctor's laugh was a familiar one and with a pained expression on his face, the Master turned around to face him.

There he stood, a bottle of champagne and two glasses in his hands.

“I thought we'd drink on you today.”

“Don't you have a war to attend to?” the Master asked sharply, too sharply – He hated that he'd been caught out thinking of him.

“Don't you?” the Doctor quipped, sitting down on the floor beside him.

“I do have chairs,” the Master sighed, but sank down to his level obediently, as the Doctor patted the floor in front of him.

“Chairs. Who needs chairs. Almost as useless as wars. Offensive, even.”

He set the two glasses on his lightly shaking TARDIS floor and poured in the champagne. Several drops spilled over his hand and before the Master could think, could stop himself, he'd grabbed it, pulled it to his lips and _licked_.

“Eager, are you?” the Doctor asked, but there was a laugh caught in his throat.

“We're in the middle of an universal battle field,” the Master replied. “Not much time for your romantic foreplay, is there? Surely, you know this too, from the look of your change of style.”

It was saddening, really. The beautiful Victorian waistcoat had made space for a bland leather jacket, the beautiful locks had been shorn short. He supposed it was only fair, though, as he, too had changed for this war, exchanged the American, slender and tall dork for the body of an old, vicious strategist, for cold eyes and the face that could make his opponents shake with fear.

The Doctor, however, was less than afraid of him. He looked at him with warm, if exhausted, eyes.

“It's your birthday,” the Doctor replied and somehow the Gallifreyan sounded heavy on his tongue now. “And even the darkest war lights up upon it.”

His kiss tasted of champagne and despair and the Master got utterly, helplessly drunk on it.

  
Of course, when he had decided to die on the Doctor just to spite him, he hadn't quite planned with all the time he'd stay death.

He didn't exactly blame people for not getting on with it. He'd expected it to take a while, indeed. But here he was, in the vast blackness of his consciousness trapped in the void until it could rise again, return to his resurrected body and take over what was rightfully his.

And he was bored.

And a bit annoyed.

And absolutely not missing the Doctor.

His brown bambi eyes that never changed, no matter much he'd aged him, how he had tormented him, that had looked at him with such adoration and devotion.

The last of their kind, indeed.

Now there were no whispered promises in Gallifreyan filling his hearts with warmth, there were no gentle kisses, no longing stares, just..... blackness.

Blackness and a vague sense of time that was his birth right, that was still soaring all around him, reminding him that, technically, even in death – This was his birthday.

And so the Master did the only sensible thing – He focused his entire willpower on the Doctor, on his mind, the mind he had entered so many times so many centuries ago, the mind he had never truly left, that had never truly left him and slipped in.

  
The Doctor was dreaming. Bless him, here he sat, in green grasses, with some blond chick and stared up at a summer sky of New Earth. Wind was blowing all around them and the Master stepped closer, kicking the girl out of the way and watching her devolve into dust as he did.

“Even in your dreams, you're still visiting Earth or a version thereof. Could you be anymore boring?”

The Doctor flinched, head turning to where this girl had been a second ago. He lay stretched out on her spot now, comfortably, pretending for the sake of the argument to have his body, to wear his old suit and smirk. His shoes were gleaming in the sunlight as he let them sway in the grass.

“You?”

“Me.”

“Is this real?”

“Let's pretend that it is, shall we?” the Master smiled.

A frown appeared on the Doctor's face.

“It does... feel real. Like you're really.... Are you in my mind?”

“A little.”

“But you're dead.”

“Am I?”

“I watched you die!” the Doctor shouted. “In my arms. You refused to... to...”

“It's my birthday!” the Master whined, stopping the Doctor dead.

“I'm aware of that.”

“Are you? Then what are you doing, dreaming of this tramp?”

The Doctor's chocolate eyes darkened. Delicious rage swimming in them now.

“Don't say that again. Don't you dare.”

“It's my birthday,” the Master replied, openly sulking now, giving his Doctor the sweetest grumpy face he had and with a sigh, he shifted closer to him, an arm wrapping around the Master's shoulders.

“Dead men don't have birthdays.”

“They so do,” the Master snorted. “Humans celebrate dead people's birthdays all the time.”

“And since when do you care about what humans do?”

The Master shrugged.

Truth was, he had never liked the Time Lord's tradition of forgetting their dead, letting them slip away by the stream of time until they needed them again. They were a wonderfully cold race, but as cold as he was himself, he'd never felt like a part of their cruelty, rather than its _result_.

“They might have a point.”

He didn't want to be forgotten when his time truly had come by him.

Not by anyone. ~~Especially not by~~ ~~ _him_~~ ~~.~~

“Well then,” the Doctor smirked, leaning his head towards him, Gallifreyan spilling from these pretty lips. “I'll use the rather exhilarating day that marks the beginning of your existence in my life as an opportunity to think of you.”

“Yeah?” the Master asked, the sulk back in his voice. “The whole day?”

“Every minute of it,” the Doctor grinned. “It's my present to you.”

“Sounds good,” the Master replied. Then he paused, frowning. “I'm still getting my birthday kiss though, right?”

  
Screw the Doctor.

Screw the Doctor for waking up the second his lips touched his, as if he was some sort of nightmare, some sort of too good to be true thing, some mix between both.

He could've really used some snogging to keep him going until his time had come.

  
  
  
Lost, that's what he seemed. She'd looked for a fitting word the whole day, as this broken, battered Doctor had showed up at her door step, pretending to care about her birthday, when he was a week too early and had despair in his eyes, threatening to overpower both of them.

“What happened to you?”

But he shook his head, grey fluff of hair shaking vigorously around him.

“I don't want to talk,” he said. “Please. Can we just... just...” He tried to speak Gallifreyan, but the words seemed to hurt his very throat, seemed to burn him up and so he stopped and spoke in English instead. The words sounded less poetic that way, less like a promise of old times, just plump and boring and unmelodious. “Celebrate your birthday?”

Missy sighed.

“Well. Sure. Fine. Come in.”

She didn't mention that it wasn't her birthday yet. She didn't mention whatever could've happened to him again. She simply let him in, sat down with him and pulled his head against her shoulder, hands running through his soft hair.

He didn't like touch much in this incarnation, she knew that. He didn't like closeness, the vulnerability that came along with it, not for him, but for whoever he was touching. He never minded the pain he'd cause her, though, not once. And he seemed almost desperate for her touch now, needy hands pulling her closer with an urgency she'd barely known from him.

He had been alone, she realised with painful clarity. For a long time. She wasn't sure why or how but she knew the symptoms. There wasn't much that could drive the Doctor into such hopeless despair than isolation did. She wrapped her arms around him, tightly, let her mind brush his, soothed him until his breathing eased and his eyes lost some of the frantic energy, until his body slacked next to hers and his heartbeats calmed.

He'd come to her.

A whole universe open to ease his mind and forget about the aching loneliness surrounding him and he'd come to her.

He didn't have the strength to say it and yet, for her, this was the first time since she could remember that she actually believed the Doctor that he was happy about her being in his life.

  
  
  
She wasn't going to come.

That thought was the only clarity he had left, in his shattered, burning mind, the only thing he knew of this Doctor, this last game they had played was that she was never going to come again. Never going to smile at him, never going to touch him gently again.

It was a cruel thought, a hard one, breaking through the wall of numbness that had settled around him, the only thought that could still invoke a feeling ever since he'd burnt Gallifrey to the ground.

He didn't blame her, he couldn't.

He just lay there, paralysed by it, as pain settled into every single bone of his body.

Hell, he loved her. He had loved every single stupid smile she'd given him when she still thought he was worth loving. He had loved her from the first second, reborn in new hope and warmth, the way she'd strode and babbled, even her arrogance, her uncoordinated smugness, the careless way she handled everyone around her with cruelty without even recognising it as such.

He had always loved everything about her, of course, but this was different, this version of her had touched hearts wounded worse than ever before.

And now she had become a part of his pain rather than the salvation and he had grown to love the pain.

What an utterly cruel thing to do. How utterly predictable that she would.

There was a knock on his door. The Master, unsure how long he'd laid there, still on his bed, felt his eyes fly open.

There weren't many people able to knock on his door while he was parked in the middle of the Time Vortex.

His hearts were racing against his will, pumping blood through his veins, adrenaline that made it impossible for him to continue his lethargy. His legs moved on their own accord, his body needing her much more than he cared to admit.

He had no power over this, over her, over anything anymore. She was moving him along like a puppet, was calling him to her and here he was, walking, jumping at her beckon.

The Master tore open the door.

The Doctor smiled at him brightly.

“Happy birthday. I got you cake. Well. I _did_ get you cake.”

She opened a box in her arms with an apologetic smile and revealed to him nothing but a few leftover crumps.

“Got a bit hungry on the way here.”

“You have a TARDIS,” he heard himself say as if from far away. “The way must've been two minutes, tops.”

“Very hungry, then,” she smiled, throwing the box into the vortex carelessly.

Litterer, he thought and somehow, he loved even that about her. How utterly unfair.

“So, what you've been doing? Partying? Stripper? Universal conquest.”

“I... I was in bed.”

She gave him a look.

“In bed? With whom?”

Only she could ask such a ridiculous question. Only she would fail to notice that in the over two thousand years that they knew each other, there had never been anyone else for him.

“Alone.”

“Well, that's not much of a party,” she replied with a frown.

“I didn't feel like partying.”

Something rushed over her face, so short, so dark, he could barely catch it, barely identify.

“What?” he asked.

“It's just... you're different. Something about you.”

“Oh, you noticed I regenerated, did you? Took you a while.”

“Not that, silly,” she smiled. “No, I mean.... you're... always you, after every regeneration. But... something's different this time.”

He didn't think he could bear it if she figured it out. Couldn't take hearing her say it.

So he did it for her instead.

“I'm broken, Doctor.”

“Rubbish,” she dismissed him with a little wave and took his hand – his hand? - to pull him with her to his bedroom. With a little grimace, she opened his window and turned on the light, smoothed over the blankets, before she pulled him down on the bed to sit next to her.

“You're not broken. You're barely born. 2578 is barely an age, huh?” She teasingly nudged his side with her elbow and he frowned at her, eyes wide and lost.

“Why? Why are you here, pretending nothing happened?”

The smile fell off her face like a requisite.

“But that's what we always do,” she uttered.

“Well, I don't want to do it anymore!” he shouted. “Something _did_ happen! It did!”

The Doctor let out a shaky sigh.

“Well... yes. But if I think about it, my mind explodes and my... my whole chest is full of rage and then my hands start trembling and I never get anything done and and... I like getting things done,” she said lamely.

“How long do you intent to do this to me?” he asked. “Play my enemy then sneak into my TARDIS afterwards, playing my friend. What even are you anymore? What even are we? I can't do this. I can't... keep on... doing this.”

He was breaking his own hearts, here, along with hers but it was alright – He had come to love the pain, after all. The only feeling that was left for him.

Tears were filling her eyes.

“Don't... don't say that... You know I don't know... can't possibly know...”

She had wrapped her arms around her body and the Master stopped, horrified at the way she was shaking.

“I always thought,” she brought out between sniffles. “That if one day I lose myself, you'd be the one to bring me back to myself. Now here I am, lost and you... you burnt a whole planet to the ground because you couldn't bear who I am anymore. I don't know... I don't know what I am, Master. You know better than me that I don't.”

A weird feeling sneaked through the pain, so tiny and unremarkable, it managed to slip through all the cracks in his walls, past all his defences and right into his hearts, boring through the ice, through the pain and wrapping around them like a warm balm.

He took her chin between his fingers gently, turning her head towards him, watched the tears glisten in her eyes.

“Friend or enemy, Doctor. That's all I wanted to know.”

“Oh.” She sniffled again, a weak smile twitching around the corners of her lips. “Well, friend, unless you force me to be enemy. Most of the times. I know I mess up sometimes, but I'm trying.”

“I don't care where you're from,” he said, because he felt like he had to, because that new warmth around his hearts was telling him to. “I don't care what you are. You're mine, you've always been.”

“I don't think I do either.”

She leant her head against his shoulder and he wrapped her arms around her, pulling her close and for a while, they just sat there.

“I didn't think you'd come.”

“I always will,” she promised, a shocked expression on her face as she sat upright again. “And if I don't, something kept me, something more powerful than I, but never, never, won't I want to come.”

She was on her knees before him, sitting up on them, hands grabbing his face between them, eyes intently boring into his.

“Do you believe me?”

“I'd like to,” he replied.

“That's alright for now.”

She kissed his lips. He'd never kissed his lips, not really, because O didn't count, not really. It wasn't the same, to kiss the Doctor as someone else or kiss her as _him_. Because what counted, for him, was never the kiss, was always knowing she'd _chose_ to kiss him.

“The day you came into my life was the day I knew I'd never have to be lost again,” she whispered in Gallifreyan, a language almost dead now, a language only kept alive by them and the Master felt his hearts bursting all of a sudden, at the thought of keeping something alive for once. “And I'll celebrate that to my dying breath. My beautiful...” She kissed his chin. “...resilient...” His cheek. “...wonderful...” Her lips found his temple, staying there, latching on, and he felt her mind connecting to his, felt the warmth and familiarity stream through him and found in it the same warmth that had settled around his hearts.

 _Love_ , he realised. _Oh_.

“... Idiot.”


End file.
